Fur Traders and Carmella Descending the Missouri

George Caleb Bingham's Fur Traders and Carmella Descending the Missouri
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Content and Criticism

George Caleb Bingham can lay claim to being the first American artist of exceptionable talent from the “West”. He is best known for his genre scenes derived from the daily life of what was then the Western frontier. Bingham’s genre paintings—narratives of everyday life—depicted and immortalized the common man: fur traders, riverboatmen, settlers and their faithful dogs in scenes of frontier life.

Fur Traders and Carmella Descending the Missouri is one of Bingham's most famous paintings. Painted around 1845 in the style called luminism by some historians of American art, it was originally entitled, French-Trader, Carmella and Half-breed Son. The American Art-Union thought the title potentially controversial and renamed it. The painting is haunting for its evocation of a bygone era in American history — note, in particular, the liberty cap worn by the old man.

Note to "Fur Traders and Carmella Descending the Missouri" The animal sitting at the bow of the dugout canoe has generated many opinions over whether it is a bear cub or a cat or dog. This controversy is no doubt in part because of another animal depicted in "Trapper's Return" (Detroit Institute of Arts), in which, standing on all fours, it is clearly a bear cub. But here, there can be no doubt it is a little brown dog. And who would bring a CAT on a boat anyway?

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George Caleb Bingham's Fur Traders Descending the Missouri